In this two-part conversation, David Roochnik and I explore famous quotations that have long been and still are resonant, as well as thought-provoking, for each of us. David’s is a phrase from Nietzsche’s Birth of Tragedy: “pessimism of strength.” What could that provocative phrase mean in light of a Nietzschean, utterly this-worldly, secular outlook? If you are a pessimist, does that mean that you are despairing or even depressed? Is it possible to be pessimistic and joyful at the same...
In this two-part conversation, David Roochnik and I explore famous quotations that have long been and still are resonant, as well as thought-provoking, for each of us. David’s is a phrase from Nietzsche’s Birth of Tragedy: “pessimism of strength.” What could that provocative phrase mean in light of a Nietzschean, utterly this-worldly, secular outlook? If you are a pessimist, does that mean that you are despairing or even depressed? Is it possible to be pessimistic and joyful at the same time? Does pessimism mean that you resign yourself to the status quo and live quietly in some private retreat—and if so, what does that have to do with “strength”?
We then move from the person who said that “God is dead” (Nietzsche) to Psalm 121, the first line of which provides my quote: “I lift my eyes to the mountains, from whence my help will come.” What is this mysterious “help” that the mountains offer and why do I—and why might you—need it? Is it about the virtues of solitude and of communing with the non-human, or about finding God in the ethereal heights, or about withdrawing from social life and its proverbial inauthenticity so as to focus on the world within oneself?
As David and I pursue the answers, we question each other in good philosophical spirit. To our surprise, our responses to our respective quotations intersect at several crucial points—for example, with regard to the place of withdrawal or retreat from aspects of human life.
For more information about Professor Roochnik, please see: https://www.bu.edu/philo/profile/david-roochnik/
This conversation with David Roochnik was recorded on August 11, 2025, and has been edited.
Show notes:
[1] Roochnik’s first quotation, “pessimism of strength,” is the topic of the initial discussion in this episode. The phrase is from Nietzsche’s “Attempt at a Self-Criticism” in Beyond Good and Evil, trans. W. Kaufmann (Random House (Vintage Books), 1967), p. 17.
In the course of the conversation, Roochnik mentions “theoretical optimism,” a Nietzschean phrase (see Beyond Good and Evil, section 15, p. 97). He also refers to Plato’s Gorgias 521d (on Socrates’ statement that he is one of the few men, if not the only man, to practice the political art) and to Peter Wohlleben’s The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate―Discoveries from A Secret World. We both refer to Plato’s Phaedrus 230d (on Socrates’ indicating that the trees have nothing to teach him).
Roochnik refers to the Epicurean view that “death is nothing to us,” and I follow up with a paraphrase of one of the Epicurean arguments for that view. For some sources, see Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus, in The Epicurus Reader, translated and edited by B. Inwood and L. P. Gerson, with an Introduction by D. S. Hutchinson (Hackett Press, 1994), 10.122-126 (pp. 28-29); and Lucretius, On the Nature of Things, Book 3, lines 830-1094. I also refer there to Thomas Nagel’s response to the Epicureans on indifference to death: see “Death,” in Nagel’s Mortal Questions (Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 1-10.
As mentioned at the end of this conversation, Roochnik’s second quotation is from Plato’s Apology 21b-22e (Socrates narrates there his questioning of the craftsmen, among other of his fellow citizens who were reputed to be wise). Roochnik and I hope to record another episode focused on our second quotations.
[2] My first quotation (the topic of the second part of the discussion in this episode) is from the start of Psalm 121. In the French version found on the front of the Swiss chalet that I mention, it runs: “Je lève mes yeux vers les montagnes/d’où me viendra le secours” (“I lift [raise] my eyes to [toward] the mountains, from whence my help will come”). In the King James translation of the Hebrew (thank you, internet!) it runs: “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.” The next line, which I also quote, is “My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth”; however, that line is not found on the façade of the chalet in question.
In the course of the conversation, I refer to Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil, section 5, p. 52: “… for it is only as an aesthetic phenomenon that existence and the world are eternally justified …” (see also pp. 22, 141); and to Beyond Good and Evil, section 15, p. 97, on Socrates as Nietzsche’s example of a “theoretical optimist.” I also refer to Rousseau’s notion of living “within” (or, “in”) rather than “outside” oneself. For the relevant passages in Rousseau’s Discourse on the Origin and the Foundations of Inequality among Men, as well as discussion of their meaning, please see ch. 4 of my Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Smith: a Philosophical Encounter (Routledge, 2018). In referring to Edward Abbey, I have his book Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness particularly in mind.
My second quotation—which I hope to discuss with Roochnik in another episode of this podcast—is Fragment 2 by Alcmaeon of Croton: “Human beings perish because they are not able to join their beginning to their end” (that translation is from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on Alcmaeon; https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/alcmaeon/). I mention that to me the quote suggests the theme—or rather, the question—of the unity of a life.
[3] With regard to Mitchell Miller on the “amazing accident” that has led to our existence and the appropriateness of gratitude as a response, I am paraphrasing from Miller’s email to me of June 12, 2017 (which I cite with permission).
The snippets of flamenco you hear throughout this podcast’s episodes are inspired by, and draw on, not only traditional tropes of the art form but in particular the work of Diego del Gastor (my teacher), Paco de Lucia (everyone’s teacher in modern flamenco), and Luciano Ghosn.
I am grateful to Steve Griswold, Annice Kra, Lisa Griswold Robbins, David Roochnik, Caroline Griswold Short, and Geoff Griswold Short for their thoughts about this episode, including about the short description thereof and the show notes.
For more information about where I am coming from in this podcast as a whole, as well as the General Acknowledgments and the Dedication, please see “Philosophy on the Way” at https://griswoldphilosophy.podbean.com/
